Houston Cement Reaps the Benefits of New G4 Series Gangway System

SafeRack equipment supplies cement plant with quicker loading times and increased safety

Houston Cement turned to SafeRack to provide a faster and safer way to load outbound trucks at the terminal. The plant installed SafeRack G4 Series flat-ramp gangways that are easy to operate and provide employees a safer work environment.

SUMTER, SC, September 14, 2009—Houston Cement Company was formed in 2004 as a joint venture between the Alamo Cement Co., San Antonio, TX, and Houston-based Ash Grove Texas L.P., a subsidiary of Ash Grove Cement Co., Overland Park, KS, a pioneer in the lime and cement industries, with more than 125 years in business. Thanks in part to an investment in the company in 2006 by Eagle Materials, Inc., Dallas, TX, through its Texas Lehigh Cement Co., Buda, TX, subsidiary, Houston Cement now operates two cement import terminals along the Houston Ship Canal. The larger of the two terminals features a 100,000 metric-ton storage facility and the capability to handle 3 million metric tons annually.
 

With this amount of throughput, time wasted during the loading process can have an adverse affect on plant efficiency, creating bottlenecks that can hamper operations.

“We get bulk-rate cement shipped in from overseas, we store it, then we load it onto trucks,” explained Bryan Dominick, a Shift Supervisor for Houston Cement. “It usually takes 12 to 15 minutes to load the truck once we get it inside the loading-station silo.”

In reviewing plant operations, Dominick knew the loading process could be done more efficiently. But it wasn’t the actual transfer of cement from the silo to the outbound trucks that was the problem; it was the fall-protection system that needed to be put into place before the loading could begin that was causing the delays. Knowing there had to be a better way, he turned to SafeRack, LLC, the leading provider of stronger, safer and easier-to-handle truck and railcar loading-rack and fall-protection equipment. Earlier this year, he had numerous SafeRack G4 Series flat-ramp gangways installed and the results improved immediately.

“With the SafeRack equipment in place, we drop about four minutes off the loading time of each truck,” said Dominick. “This helps expedite the loading process for the truck drivers; it helps them get in and out.”

SafeRack has designed its G4 Series gangways with ergonomics in mind. This makes them easy to operate, so much so that Houston Cement doesn’t even need to have any of its employees at the rack anymore when the trucks are being loaded.

“They are so much easier to operate and get into position than the previous gangway system that we were using that we don’t even have one of our guys do it, the truck driver does it himself,” said Dominick. “We just added informational placards in the loading area so they understand how to do it. The truck driver just pulls up to the loading area, drops the gangway in place, gets his load and drives off when the gangway goes back up.”

While this increased loading speed was ultimately what Dominick and Houston Cement were looking for, by choosing the G4 from SafeRack they are also benefiting from the system’s patent-pending design. G4 gangways use cutting-edge metal-stamping technology to create a stronger gangway that is at the same time lighter and smoother to operate. SafeRack’s G4 Gangways are constructed using parts, most often aluminum, that are stamped out in a tool-and-die process and then formed by bending the metal into the required shape, eliminating the need to weld the pieces together. This production process is also quicker than the one used for other gangway systems, allowing for more expedient delivery and turnaround time for the customer.

So while the main reason Dominick chose SafeRack was the equipment’s ability to provide decreased loading times, Houston Cement is now experiencing the best of many worlds: increased operational efficiency, ease of operation, decreased maintenance costs, and increased safety for truck drivers and the plant’s employees.

“It was purely a time-consumption thing for us at first and we went with SafeRack because we were looking for something that would lessen the time it took to complete the loading process,” said Dominick. “But we found that we also went with SafeRack because they are a step up on safety, also.”

SafeRack’s new G4 Series Gangway—positioned in the upright position at the top of the staircase— is the safest and most user-friendly gangway available in the industry today.

For more information on any of SafeRack’s products or solutions, please contact Tom Semiklose, Vice President Sales, at (866) 761-7225 or tsemiklose@saferack.com, or visit www.SafeRack.com.

SafeRack, LLC, is committed to providing stronger, safer and easier-to-handle truck and railcar loading-rack and fall-protection equipment. Headquartered in Sumter, SC, SafeRack has more than 200 years of combined experience in offering the food/pharmaceutical, specialized chemical, pulp and paper, building products, plastics, cement, mining, petroleum, biodiesel and ethanol industries high-quality equipment that has been customized for each customer’s unique loading applications. For more information, please visit www.saferack.com.